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December 02, 2005
Tit & An Ass
Let it be said, for the record, that I adore Feministe. I read it every day. I think the world of Jill and Lauren, to say nothing of Lauren's cats.
I don't, however, love the creepy misogynistic commenters that are perpetually buzzing around the comments, making coarse cracks about Lauren and Jill. Now, I am, in general, in full support of coarse cracks about just about anyone or anything, but, still, something about the pro-life kinksters' remarks really give me the heebie-jeebies. I once started to write a post about this before but stopped because 1) I have no desire to engage any of them and 2) Jill and Lauren seem to accept the ribbing in good cheer, and it's their blog, so if it's a-ok by them, I really have no business reading their comments otherwise. However, I just finished reading Cintra Wilson's very funny and entertaining novel Colors Insulting to Nature, and as I eyeballed the string of increasingly odd comments following this, one line from the book came to mind. Now, I don't have the book in front of me, and I'm sure I'm going to totally mangle the quote, but it comes up when Liza, the protagonist is observing the antics of the depraved offspring of a depraved celebrity-- particularly, the offspring's flip way of calling the model/starlettes/escorts he cavorts with "slut," or "trollope," or "whore." Wilson writes that "his playful faux-disgust was nothing other than undisguised disgust." Or something like that. It's close enough, anyway, to get where I'm going with this. Sometimes, reading the Feministe comment threads, I get the feeling that a lot of the playful, faux-mysognism is really just undisguised mysoginism.
Now, all of this is somewhat beside the point, the main point, of this post, which is not, in fact, to complain that someone else's blog is not totally in line with my own taste. What I want to point out has nothing, really, to do with Feministe in particular-- it just so happens that Feministe's recent comment thread responding to Lauren's post about this revolting little specimen of humanity who, in his most recent NRO column had this to say:
Jennifer's bristols. Did I buy, or browse, a copy of the November 17 GQ, in order to get a look at Jennifer Aniston's bristols?** No, I didn't. While I have no doubt that Ms. Aniston is a paragon of charm, wit, and intelligence, she is also 36 years old. Even with the strenuous body-hardening exercise routines now compulsory for movie stars, at age 36 the forces of nature have won out over the view-worthiness of the unsupported female bust.It is, in fact, a sad truth about human life that beyond our salad days, very few of us are interesting to look at in the buff. Added to that sadness is the very unfair truth that a woman's salad days are shorter than a man's — really, in this precise context, only from about 15 to 20. The Nautilus and the treadmill can add a half decade or so, but by 36 the bloom is definitely off the rose. Very few of us, however, can face up to this fact honestly, and I am sure this diary item will generate more angry e-mails of protest than everything else I have written this month.
** Bristols. Cockney rhyming slang. There is a well-known soccer team in England named Bristol City.
Charming. One of Feministe's most endearing commenters even takes it upon himself to defend Derbyshire's comments. Whatever. That should not be surprising given the numerous other endearing comments that man has left at Feministe before.
What troubles me more than gross people making gross defenses of other gross people's gross statements is that the other side, those who find Derbyshire's remarks distasteful, false or revolting keep making the same argument-- essentially that Derbyshire's comments are objectionable because they are wrong; slightly older women are actually quite pretty. Women commenters testify that they receive more male attention in their thirties and say they're much prettier now than they were at sixteen. Male commenters chivalrously step in to claim that they don't find nymphettes appealing at all, that older women are really sexy, and that they raised no objection at all to the display of Jen Anniston's titty.
Am I being overly harsh and unfair to people I'm largely in sympathy with? Yes, undoubtedly. But I find myself really rankled by the narrowness and sexism that both sides of the spat are participating in. On one side, they say older men are wired to get hard for ninth-graders; on the other side, they say, no, developed breasts are actually much more sexy. Big fucking deal. The disagreement is about which variety of sex-bot is most pleasing to me; everyone, on both sides, in complicit in the assumptions that 1) pleasing men is important, and 2) women are sex-bots that exist for no reason besides men's viewing pleasue. So, yes, this kind of boils my blood.
The Derbyshire-inspired faux-debate reminds me of the Dove ad dance that was all the rage a few short months ago. In particular, I am reminded of always-fantastic Wendy McClure's Chicago Sun-Times Op-Ed responding to the "Real Beauty" debate. McClure had this to say about the nasty reactions to the "heavy" models in the ads:
They expose the nasty inverse of "the beauty standard," which is the belief, held by some men, that women who don't look like fantasy material aren't just unworthy of their attention but are actually offensive, or even menacing.
and this:
t's a dirty little notion, and rarely is it ever this publicly expressed. The sheer entitlement behind it is usually a silent presence, perhaps even an unconscious one. But it's disconcerting when it emerges, when perfectly nice men like Guerrero insist that Dove ditch the Real Women in order to "make [his] morning commute a little more pleasing to the eyes." Even though he's not even the one buying firming cream.
and, not least of all, this:
This isn't about whether the Dove women are beautiful or not. We could argue endlessly over whether the women are too fat to be attractive, or not fat enough to be "real," or too airbrushed; whether they're prettier with their clothes on, if the angles of their photos are flattering. But we'd be taking them apart the way we do with so many other women in the media, dissecting them piece by piece. Which gets us nowhere.And this isn't about whether men's fantasies are unrealistic or stupid or shallow or shameful. Men are certainly entitled to their preferences. Having preferences is one thing; expecting the world to cater to them is another.
Men aren't obligated to consider every woman beautiful, or for that matter, to make every woman feel good about herself.
But by the same token, nobody owes you a nice view, guys.
Wendy's point about "fat" women in media holds for "old" women in media as well, but I suspect Derbyshire missed the article. So heinously offensive is an over-twenty tit that Derbyshire feels traumatized and indignant that the world dare subject him to Ms. Anniston's malevolent nip, and instead of slapping the twit across the face and reminding him that no one gives a doo-doo about his regard for Ms. Anniston's breats and that he (shockingly) is not entitled to a world peopled exclusively by nymphettes that are pleasing and arousing to view, instead of engaging in the trap of trying to argue what age/ weight/ etc. is really the most attractive.
Posted by hissycat at December 2, 2005 07:51 PM